


If I Only Had A Brain

by ShetheCat



Category: TAZ: Balance - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, don't be here if you aren't looking for dav-heavy stuff, everyone else tagged is there but Dav is centre stage, introspective, staticked dav, this is how i work out those Dav Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShetheCat/pseuds/ShetheCat
Summary: Does Davenport make you Feel Things in an emotional sense? Have I got news for you! Me too, bud, I wrote some words about it





	If I Only Had A Brain

He had been brave once.

 

He had been stalwart, and determined, and dedicated. He had battled the most terrifying and fearsome of foes, and he had survived both isolation and the crowded I-cannot-bear-to-lose-a-single-idiot rooms of his ship.

 

He had been Captain once. He had been many things, skillful and learned and capable. He trusted his hands to repair, could trust his hands to build, had trusted those hands countless times to stretch materials and somehow still surpass the bounds of possibility.

He had trusted his mind- quick, clever, canny- to find paths, to make and navigate, to deduce _options_ . He had been _Captain_ , which really meant mechanic, navigator, manager, engineer.

 

He had been so proud of his _Starblaster,_ and so desperately proud of (worried for, enlightened by) his crew.

 

Had.

 

Much of the time he existed in the grey. He tried not to focus on it- and focusing was beyond difficult for most of the time anyway. Static lived in the edges of his vision, threatened every thought he tried to form. The only thing he had any kind of grasp on was his name. He clung to it, his single point of stability in a world that didn't make sense, had never made sense, would never make any sense.

 

He learned to inflect his own name with emotion. He couldn't give up the one identifier he had for _anything_ just to strangle on a wider vocab that clung to his throat like acid. Like fear. Like tar that consumed his voice before it escaped.

 

Sometimes, that old muscle memory kicked in with muscles that didn’t know there was anything to even remember, and some phrase would roll off his tongue with nothing like thought attached to it.

 

Asked...something, he replies blithely, “They don’t call me Capnport for nothing!” and spends the next hour before he loses the memory of the incident in an existential panic. Because they don’t. They’ve never called him- Who?

 

w̕h̢̕͟o̷?̕

 

W̧̛̰͓̳̫̤͎͚̬ͣ͂̿̏͒ͬ̋hͯ̾̎̈́̋͏҉̥̥o̥̠̺̲͕̙̬̒̍́̑̉͑?̡͎͓͙̫̼͚͚̖̻͊̑̑ͧͦ͊̒̏

 

His eyes fuzz too much to see the Director’s face twist as he speaks, and the trio of adventurers are too busy giving him bemused looks to see her, and it’s important, he _knows_ this is important, but the static that lives behind his eyes is _hungry-_

 

He wades through this fog to help the Director in small ways, ways that don’t overwhelm but let him be useful, let him be _valuable_ , let him be trustworthy. He carries things of importance even though he cannot fathom what they are or why they are important. He remembers his small, vital (they must be vital, he must believe he is doing something _important_ ) tasks with the bloody-minded ferocity of a being who once captained...something big. ~~_bigger than the world. existence? reality?_~~

 

The ferocity of someone who cannot bear to have his remaining tatters of memory go blowing loose in the wind.

 

Of course he remembers things, but so much of _him_ is missing that the memories of days around the Bureau are shiftless and hard to differentiate between. What he remains is eclipsed too thoroughly by who he isn’t anymore.

 

This is Davenport, Captain of the _Starblaster_ , wielder of the greatest piloting skills and most spectacular moustache ever seen by any of the planes, or reality, or indeed, the many incarnations of reality, in all of Existence. He is mighty, and agile, and oft underestimated; for his speed with a spell or ship is only equalled by his speed with words and wit.

Or it used to be.

 

Wit takes a certain sharpness of mind and tongue, and Davenport… Well, having one’s life’s work, ambition and identity erased doesn’t exactly hone either of those.

 

He remembers, just before he wakes, a chess board. He recognises the pattern of pieces, and knows how to counter it. He remembers painted cards, every one different and fantastic, flipping between deft fingers. He hears a low chuckle and throws a patented underestimate-me grin across the table at the laughing dwarf with sky-bright eyes.

 

The image fades as he opens his eyes to his room on the moonbase, before he truly sees the other man’s face or the name that face might have belonged to. ~~_bearded and laughing,something green_~~

 

He stumbles in his usual cotton-wool haze to the mirror and begins a meticulous grooming process until he recognises himself in the glass. He thinks of a dream that his hair came in greys, wonders why his throat aches and thickens at the thought, the half-remembered idea of the Director running in to his screaming terror and casting a glamour that hid the greys and let him match his face to his Self- the one he knew could _do things_ even if he didn’t know what.

He dreams sometimes of tar, of drowning in it, but he never remembers those when he wakes, just spends the morning swallowing too often, trying to clear an unblocked esophagus.

 

There’s a murmur from the moonbase. He doesn’t understand the rhythms necessarily, but he follows them. He knows when something is happening.

 

Killian has returned from regulating Magic Brian. There’s three new recruits. Davenport doesn’t recognise them, but then sometimes he doesn’t recognise his own face- something missing. Purpose? Definition? ~~_family_~~

 

The elf with an apathetic smile and eyes like jagged splinters of iron has no mirror. The massive, powerful fighter thinks his life is worth _less_ . The grumbling dwarf has too few flowers in his beard, and his smile twists too much, means something it shouldn’t. The Director’s back is rigid and she uses formality to hide ...more than he can see. More than they see. ~~_oh, gods what have you done_~~

She claps her hands and he follows his script, every remembered detail a comfort, every piece he knows is something he hasn’t lost. He hears their names and they flake in his mind like paper ashes- velvet dust of something that meant something. He tells them his, over and over, because it’s all he has. The Director is gracious as ever, and he tries to follow the conversation but ends up watching the white oak staff, and the dark knuckles curled around it slowly paling to match the wood hue.

 

The glove, encased in its orb, goes between rooms, and he loses track of it once it leaves his care. He appears like a shadow, watching the three adventurers with something that feels like longing. He wishes he knew what for.

 

The elf with the soft hair and broken-glass gaze has fingers curled around the gnarled handle of a brightly coloured umbrella, and Davenport squints because the picture it forms is somehow warped, somehow off, and he blinks so hard he gets a headache.

 

Somewhere dark and hidden and alone, small glimmering lights swirl and wink in and out of view, and a tiny bell jingles its warning. The jingle happens often, but very quietly, and the glimmers of light never manage to form a coherent pattern.

 

The Director asks him to leave, and the poor, bewildered gnome stumbles back to his room. Some days are like that- short and overwhelming, and he ends up hiding in sleep. He doesn’t hear about the new recruits and their seeming immunity to the relics, but he runs into them once on an errand and proudly yips his name a few times -they _must_ know him- and hears a joke that the immunity to the thrall is from their incredible stupidity. The elf is supposed to have said this, all edges and teeth, and the dwarf had agreed with such vigour, the human with a great laugh. Davenport does not know what to think. ~~_Dav does not know how to think_~~

 

The human’s laugh is big, so big, it expands out of him like joy given voice, it makes Davenport’s head ache with the urge to be near it, to wrap himself in that laugh and feel...safe? ~~_at home_~~

 

The dwarf talks a lot and inspires something similar to the human’s laugh. The dwarf also frightens Davenport with the bright places in his eyes and the blades on his tongue when he refers to himself, and makes the gnome want to scream, or rage, or weep -he doesn’t know which, and the not knowing makes the fog worse.

 

Every time he meets them he spends the next two days stumbling through the fog, barely managing to survive being upright or putting food in his mouth. His mind finds them incomprehensible to the point it tries to shut down into safe mode. He tries to fly his bedside table with an unlit candle as a joystick, but doesn’t remember what brought the activity to mind.

 

His dreams get worse.

 

He dreams now of running- but not to escape. He dreams of running as fast as his short legs can manage, as fast as thought, as want. As need. He races towards beautiful places, and beloved things, and magnificent treasures.

 

All collapse into light and dust when he reaches them.

 

Worse, he finds himself peering through an eyepiece as he runs and the images leap into realism, become solid and glorious and whole, just before he wakes.

 

Sometimes though, he dreams of reaching these great places, beautiful ships and loved people he can’t see the faces of- and the eyepiece leaps from his face. It hangs in front of him, and through it he watches nightmares become real, sees armies and weapons and war machines ripple into hard, cold, reality. He sees this and cannot move, cannot speak, ~~_cannot stop the destruction_~~ -

 

-from those dreams he wakes weeping.

 

The Director trusts him and he keeps himself busy with his small day-to-day tasks and if he sometimes wonders that pieces of him seem hungry for a bigger role, he never manages to hold onto the thought for long. Sometimes, the Director talks to him, a waterfall of anxious words made entirely of static. His confusion makes him frown, and she chokes off the flow and sends him off to follow his checklist of details. There is something he knows about this but he cannot form the thought.

 

Davenport’s life is just a series of thoughts he cannot ever fully form.

 

Honestly, the first Davenport hears about the latest mission is the cheering after the Director contacts the trio through their stones of Farspeech to get the good news, and he hurries to gather their rewards. Counting gold pieces is soothing. Numbers make sense. Numbers don’t change. He smoothes a thumb over each piece as he counts the correct amount into each bag, and scoops up three tokens so they can win a magic item.

 

When it comes down to it, this may be a tale of grand deeds and great consequences, but it is also a story told in small spaces, and the places between heroism.

 

Davenport counts gold and holds it out with a beaming smile, and the hope shining from the Director is intoxicating; not how mead is intoxicating but the way sunlight is intoxicating.

 

The Director appears to be following the incredibly disjointed account with relative ease, and Davenport feels like he _should_ be. He isn’t surprised at whatever new twist they remind each other of- impressed, certainly, but he cannot find any surprise. ~~_how can he be surprised with the madness they’ve managed in the past_~~

 

Things settle for a while, it seems. Davenport buries himself in small accountings, helping to keep things tidy, running smooth. He does not work with any machinery- he doesn’t know how, wouldn’t know where to start. He helps with the set up for the midsummer fayre, trotting back and forth with site allocations, and adjustments, and proposed vendors. It is comfortably busy, satisfying in its steady, reassuring mundanity.

 

Until the sky begins to scream.

 

He blacks out with something shrieking in his skull, with a weight he’d always carried digging into his spine, with some terrified inevitability telling him _time is running out_ without context or explanation. Honestly, the last bit is about normal, but Davenport is so _tired_.

 

~~_so barely even a shadow of himself_ ~~

 

He doesn’t tell anyone of the way he saw the screaming sky go dark before he fainted. He doesn’t talk about the eyes he glimpsed glaring down at him, the eyes that haunt him in dreams he can’t remember. He wouldn’t be able to string the words together even if he tried. He tries, once, to tell the Director he is afraid, but the words are slippery and his tongue too clumsy to manage.

 

After midsummer he is afraid, and every passing day the sense of _wrongness_ , the feeling that he’s supposed to be _doing something important_ builds. He boxes that feeling up as much as possible, stores it next to all the other inexplicable feelings and things he doesn’t know but should, things he shouldn’t know but does. Once, trotting out to bring Avi a replacement gear, he finds himself dawdling. Davenport watches Avi deftly flick open a panel and start to tinker, and he says, unthinking, “You’ve got that round the wrong way, it won’t turn properly.”

 

Avi looks over and says, “What was that?”

 

Davenport’s mouth drops open but he cannot remember what he said or what prompted it, does not have the knowledge to comment on any part of this. His forehead creases and he looks up to Avi, mouth working uselessly until it spills over into “Davenport? Da _venport? Davenport_!”

 

He flees.

 

He runs as fast as he can, fades into a gasping jog, slows to a walk. By the time he reaches the main dome, the static has descended and he can’t remember why he’d panicked, or had been running. There is something familiar about it, but he loses the thread, and goes back to his checklist.

 

Around this short, dapper figure of a gnome, great events occur. Around him, who would once have been just as much conductor as subject, world-changing actions are taken. He personally handles, to a small extent, every one of the Great Relics. He solemnly carries them to the chamber built to destroy them. He does not find it difficult to resist their offers -and he does hear them. The Director sees no problem with putting the Relics briefly into his care. ~~_after all, the only ones that can resist their thrall are the ones who c̷̕͝r҉̧͏̨͜e̷̢̛͜͢ą̸͟t҉͏̵̵e̷̡҉̴d̶̷ them_~~

And though he does not know what it is, he feels the shadow fall over the world, over the plane. He spends more time in his quarters, staring at his reflection, begging it to look like it should. He looks too old, and there’s something unfinished about his uniform and he can’t figure it out, can’t figure anything out. Sometimes the words that fail him stick in his throat so that he chokes until red hazes his vision, and briefly he looks almost-not-quite-nearly _right_ . In those last, building weeks, his breath comes short often and he feels a weight he knows is about to crush him - ~~_finish him for good, finally_~~ \- and he’s _not where he needs to be_ and he’s _alone_ except he isn’t, and Tres Horny Boys are training harder and harder in preparation for Wonderland and- and-

 

He stops sleeping.

 

He starts pouring over every record he can find, searching for some discrepancy, some reason for the wrongness. He hasn’t much of himself left but he can count and he can read. He can do his best to focus.

 

He focuses on records too well, because he finds nothing to explain that twisting anxiety, and he also misses things starting to tense around the Moonbase. He hurries down hallways with his eyes on the floor, running one hand over his moustache in a nervous tic he doesn’t remember developing.

 

Tres Horny Boys leave for Wonderland. The summer solstice passes uncelebrated- and by Davenport, unnoticed entirely. The level of held-breath tension becomes unbearable.

 

The grass on the quad wilts ever so slightly. Colours become _less_.

 

Davenport cannot find _anything_. He’s started napping in random alcoves because he cannot sleep at night, and jolts awake every time panicking- and inky blackness seems to follow him out of sleep for a heartbeat and he thinks- ~~_w̺͔̟̻̺e̮͕͠'̷̰̞̱v͚̜̱̲̼͖̜e̶̠̪͇ ̷̯͉͔̥̙̣f̧̯͚̳͔̖a̵i̛̥̲̰l̘̝̰̳̻̰̕e̜̱d̻._~~

 

He finally looks up- almost an accident while he scuttles between domes- and loses himself staring into a sky that has too many shades of grey in its blue, and a sun that isn’t giving enough light off for being just about as close as it ever gets.

 

~~_it’s found us._ ~~

 

~~_t̮̤͚h̩e̻ ͚̝̪H̷̝͇̬̳̥̩̹͚̳̥͙͛̆̊̉͑̔̌ͣ͢u̶̵͓̣̰͇̼̝̦̠͕̳͓ͯ͒͛̅̆͑̐̃ͣ͜͡n̵̶̦̙̜͙̲̗̞̦̞̞͇͕͙̘̟̾̆͗͆͂͗̄̍̈́̀̓̀̊̾̍ͦ̓ͣ̕͢͡ͅg̵̈ͣ͋̄̔͡҉̠͙͚̼̗͎̝̮e̟͚̘̙̠̰͚͋͂͒̍͑̏͆͊ͦͧ̏ͪͮͮ̇͜͠ř͚͉̞͈͈̪̮͍̩̺̰͕̟̪̰̱͙̳́̃̊͗̄ͦ̿̎͛̓̇͟͝_ ~~

 

“Davenport!”

 

The Director is in the doorway of the main dome, gesturing for him to join her. Her face is tense. ~~_she knows._~~ He stumbles towards her, running on nerves and confusion and a determination he doesn’t realise he has, doesn’t even realise he’s using it.

She catches him by the arm as he reaches her and brings him inside, brings him into the circle of her safety. She keeps her fear out of the grip she has on him, and tries not to think too much about the way he looked, standing with his face to the greying sky, a decade too old and full of fear he cannot even remember running from.

 

She hopes her reclaimers are okay. She hopes even more than that that they are alive. Alive and on their way back seems almost too much to hope for but it's all she has.

 

It's all the world or any of the planes has.

 

They stay in the throne room. Angus is pacing, hands knotted like tree bark, tired eyes slitted in concentration and concern. His forehead is a paper-ball of frown lines. The stone of Farspeech on the arm of the Director’s throne crackles. Bodies freeze. Faces turn like sunflowers to the dawn.

 

The stone is silent.

 

The mood in the room gets heavier. There is lead in every set of lungs. Davenport starts counting his fingers, over and over, and over. He gets different results each time. Finger counting is more of an art than a science.

 

The stone crackles again and Taako’s voice comes through- too mangled to make out an actual word, but recognisably a voice all the same.

 

The Director snatches the stone up and speaks, trip-tongued with urgency, “Reclaimers? Hello? Come in!”

 

Angus is there too, hanging over her hands as though if he gets close enough he can climb through the stone and find his friends. “Sirs? Sirs, please say something?!” His voice is squeaking, fraying wires of fear sparking through every word.

 

“Taako! Merle! Magnus!”

 

A snatch of something distorted and staticky. Could be a laugh, or a whisper, or someone dropping the stone. Could be a response and too much interference. Could be-

 

A burst of shifting, warping static and the stone falls completely silent. The faint note it had previously emitted vanishes. The Director goes ashen and drops the stone. Angus snatches it up and starts trying to fix the magic, or figure out exactly what caused the cut-off, choking on dry, rasping sobs as he does.

 

“They’re gone, their stones are gone, oh no, no, _no, nonono-”_

 

There is a long, painful quiet. Eventually the Director looks up from the death grip she has on her staff and says, “Right. This is concerning but there is no reason to believe they’re actually _gone_. They are resourceful, and cunning, and have managed to get through far worse things than this. We will keep the lines open. Davenport!”

 

“Davenport?”

 

“Please find Avi, tell him to be on standby for a retrieval request from our reclaimers. If one comes though, they need to be picked up _immediately_.”

 

“Davenport.” He snaps his hand up in a salute and is gone from the room in a heartbeat. He has a task, it is important, and he can accomplish it.

 

Davenport _runs._ He races through the quad, tough feet nimble over soft, soft grass, beelines for the dome that hosts the cannon. He leaps up the steps, agile in a way that should surprise him ~~_(why would he have any sort of nimbleness or agility it’s not required nothing he does would gain those things),_~~  and bursts through the doors. Avi looks up from his chair by the control panel, gives him a tense smile and raises his flask companionably-

 

Davenport must give him a message.

 

The gnome opens his mouth, brilliant orange moustache twitching fiercely. His mouth twists. He stutters. He _chokes_. The world condenses down to this single point: Avi receiving the message is more important than holding his name so close he cannot manage the words.

 

“D-Dvv- keep an ear out on your stone. D- they might need r-r-retrieval at any point. They’ll n-need it _fast_.” he gasps out, tumbling words like polished stones- shiny and messy and speed smoothes the edges.

 

Avi gives him a long serious look and salutes him. He does it in a fast, smooth motion that manages to avoid spilling much from the flask still clasped in his hand.

 

They share a long determined look before Davenport gets dizzy and has to rush back out and whisper his name a dozen times to make sure it's back in all the right places. The black, oily, roiling sky is truly _here_

 

~~_(but he doesn't know what that means only that he feels it, it's deeper than knowledge because he has no knowledge of this overbearing omen, this suffocating cloak of an ominous storm gone wrong, this vicious h́ͬͥ̾̐́̐̿̏̀̓̎̏͏͜͏̢̼̦̣̦̕ȕ̵̡̞̩͕̪̩̞̗̣̪̜̘̃ͦ̈̔̂̐̀ͩ̄̊ͨ͊ͤ́͜n̒ͪͥ̒̆̿ͮ̍̓̊ͭ̔̽̈́ͣ̿̀ͥ͏͇̬̙͍͓͚̖͉̜͇̲͓͇̠̩̜̩̠ͅg̶̴̨̜͎̥͎̺̜̣̦̞̒ͨ̇ͯͪ̎̃̎̌̌̋̾ͫͪ̂̈́͛͜͜ͅrͮ͒̉̒͑͆̐ͧ҉̨͎̗̳͕̲̭̰̭̺̫͓̦̞̘y̵̵̡͎̹̼̪̲͇͖̣̲̤̲̫̻̻̺̱̺̳̭̓̒̆̔)_ ~~

 

Here is a thing to know: bracers signal the cannon. Bracers send coordinates directly to the cannon so the person watching over can send it off with the shortest delay.

 

Here is another thing to know: Avi knows first that the reclaimers- or at least one of them- is alive. Avi sends the ball down before informing the Director over their Stones.

 

Here is the other side of that: Davenport does not get told immediately because he is in his quarters trying to find a door that does not exist to a ship he cannot remember and would not understand if he did.

 

Angus is on his way to find the gnome as the glass ball is fired towards their found reclaimers.

 

Here is the most important thing to know: our trio is not safe, nor are they all alive, but they are not in any way finished and they have the threads of a great web in hand. They are about to start pulling. They have found help and a source of knowledge and _most of all_ the right line of questioning.

 

Lastly: all of them are very, _deeply_ afraid. Not all of them know why. Not all of of them know what of. Very few know both.

 

They land in the hangar: glass and wood and tension and too many heartbeats. Avi greets them with hands shaping _relief_ through the air and the lines around his eyes and the muscles in his back shout of hope and fear in equal measure: they're back, they're safe. They're back and hopefully _we're_ safe.

 

The sky is somehow darker. It is stillness. It is the dark of an empty stomach. There are brilliant jewel-gleaming teeth involved.

 

If you look up, you can see the teeth now.

 

Taako and Merle stumble from the orb with a wooden mannequin in tow, one dressed in fancy filigree’d metal. Killian and Carey come to meet them, masking trembling hands with high fives until Magnus doesn’t walk out of the ball. Until Magnus is _not there_ and This Is Not A Drill Your Friend Has Died. His body done burned to ash, say his team. He saved us, sure as shit, but his protection kink got him killed like we all knew it would.

 

The wooden mannequin manages to seem uncomfortable with the conversation despite being made of wood and definitely not inhabited by a ghost.

 

If the faceless oak head swivels to stare at Taako, and the elf adjusts their speech and plan as though responding, it is only because it is holding the gathered belongings of their absolutely, very super-dead, totally deceased companion.

 

Elves are not psychic and cannot talk to spirits.

 

Magic users have all manner of loopholes.

 

If a whisper reaches Taako to trust someone in particular, to love them, it is no one's business but theirs. And anyway this is all conjecture and the faint ~~_b͖͕͎̪͗ͮ̈̌ͯẹͩͅl͇̻̗̯̣̭̯̕o̬͍͉̓̔̓̿̅v̛̟̝͍̝ͪ̏e̻ͨ̓̍͑̒̉ͤd́ͣ̎҉_~~ female voice is more confusion than boon. It describes itself as Taako’s ~~_s̯̙̝̠̱̲̮̤̥̪̺̒͌ͯͣ̈́̍ͨ͗͊̈ͥ͐̋̇̇̆͡į̨̨̹̹̱̼͕̝̲̬̆ͧͯͧ͛̈́ͬ̆̃͞s̛ͭͥ̋̾ͮ̊͊̾̿ͪͭ̉̍͒̔̚҉̘͖̱͉͔̞̬t̨̲͍̙̙̥̹͙̫̱͊ͭ͋́ͧ̍͂̿ͮ̂͛̚͘e̢̡̛̲̼̫̦̤̪̩̤͇̞͇̩̤͕̻̍͒ͭ͂̓͠r̐ͧ͑̒͗̂͏͏̩̩͇̹̣̗_~~ static- or perhaps it would if it existed. We of course have no proof of any of this occurring and are merely doing thought exercises.

 

Davenport appears in the hangar next, wordless and determined. He has the hollow metal ball for the relic, carried insistently on a cushion- layers and degrees of separation. Anything to help mute the voice- it’s so unfair that these.. these _things_ , these objects, can express themselves with such clarity and will. He has his name, said three times with increasing firmness and prolonged eye contact, and nothing more as the reclaimers dither before handing over the Animus Bell.

 

It laughs at him as it makes its offer. He is too muddled by his own broken, half formed static thoughts to take much notice of an extra voice muttering more nonsense.

 

His thoughts never make much sense. It's like doing a 1000 piece puzzle except half the pieces are missing and a lot of the remaining pieces are from different puzzles- and some of them aren't from puzzles at all, just bits of rubbish someone chucked in the box.

 

He makes it to the Director and her face makes so many shapes he almost can't look at her. She goes through emotions too tangled for him to make out- joy, something, something, sad, something, hope?- and she thanks him.

 

She touches his shoulder and looks into his eyes and says, “Thank you, Davenport. I can save us all now.”

 

She is as much home as he has and he loves her- she's so important to him, and she is good and he _knows_ that but-

 

He does not and cannot know why-

 

There is a new flavour of fear and dread laying dust-thick on his useless tongue. It's not as familiar as the one he's been living with for weeks now but it tastes -sharper. More like panic, like something to stop rather than run from.

 

He says nothing. He has no words. He has the barest understanding of what he's feeling. He watches her brace herself and determination settle over her face and then-

 

It is time to destroy the Relic.

 

The last relic people are saying except that math is wrong but the numbers are slippery and heavy and he is so tired.

 

There are only two reclaimers and they are mourning-but-not and going to skip the destruction for a sit in the Director’s office, a non-wake for a very brave, very dead man.

 

Angus slips away at some point and Davenport keeps himself busy with tidying anything the slightest bit out of place. He wipes down the throne with a soft soft cloth and sweeps away a sprinkle of chalk dust from an unknown somewhere. The Director is tense and focused and he sees the tension in her forearms, her shoulders, her spine.

 

A bell rings. Insistently.

 

It cuts off too late with a finality that suggests a handily cast spell.

Well-cast but heartbeats too late, there are echoes taking longer to fade than the bell even rang for but they are there, mapping the hollow curves of the dome. Someone is where they shouldn't be.

 

The Director looks.. Resigned. Like she should have expected this. Like she can't believe it took this long but she also thought since it hadn't happened yet then it never would.

 

“It appears someone has gone into my private rooms,” she says, tucking the curling edge of her shorn hair out of her eyes. “Guards, would you please come with me to escort them back.”

 

They disappear through the door and though the Director is calm the skin of her hands is changing colour from the pressure of her grip on her staff.

 

For Davenport, at least, the next span of time is almost comprehensible. The reclaimer...duo is brought in, and Angus is with them, and the Director is trembling and all the lines in her face are carved like rock.

 

Taako’s jaw flexes, and he has a frown line like the earth splitting, “No, no!”

He points the umbrastaff at the Director and bare very white, somewhat gap-toothed chompers. “You took fucking _everything from_ me. The world is ending and I don't give a shit. I don't care. _You took my sister from me_. One...two-”

 

“Lucretia, an explanation-”

 

“We deserved an _explanation_ fuckin’ fifty memories ago! Three! Four!-”

 

“Taako-”

 

“Five-”

 

There is another man, soft and wearing blue denim pants, and in the muddle he leans down to the gnome and offers him a flask.

 

He sips something thick and dark from the bottle and it slides down his throat like ice and his skull feels like his brain just expanded twelvefold and the pain of it drives him to his knees. He's clutching his head, moustache tickling his wrists, and the mists lift- the static clears.

 

The horror grips him through the dawning realisations and the thundering beating currently occurring inside his head.

 

He looks up. Barry Bluejeans is standing beside him, capping the flask. His crewmember. His friend. His _family._

 

“Lucretia,” Davenport whispers, “what have you done?”

**Author's Note:**

> yell with me about the boy :3


End file.
